Grover Beach again pursuing charter

December 19, 2013

The Grover Beach City Council may ask voters to reconsider adopting a charter. [Tribune]

In 2012, a ballot measure that would have transformed Grover Beach into a charter city failed by a difference of four votes. But, on Monday, the Grover Beach City Council received a recommendation from a 10-member committee to place a charter measure back on the ballot next November.

“The consensus was that the council should move forward,” said committee head and former councilman Steve Lieberman.

The council agreed to pursue the charter measure and will likely appoint another committee to draft it.

“It insulates us in some fashion from Sacramento,” Councilman Jeff Lee said. “It’s about the local community and whatever we can do to support the local community.”

The 2012 charter measure faced opposition from unions, particularly over a section that would have exempted the city from paying prevailing wage on construction projects funded by local revenue streams.

In the current measure, city officials will likely opt to exclude the prevailing wage exemption due the recent passage of Senate Bill 7. The new law prohibits charter cities from using state funds for construction projects if their charters include prevailing wage exemptions.

City Manager Bob Perrault has previously said that 80 percent of the city’s capital improvement projects use state or federal funds.

They will never be “insulated” from Excramento because they will, like all good little cities, take that State and Federal money. It cannot be avoided, politicians only know how to spend other people’s monies, so when it is dangled in front of them, they salivate and snap at it.

Once the money has been taken, it won’t matter if you’re incorporated, chartered or whatever. They own you and it becomes “yessir, may I please have another” from then on out. Don’t believe me? Ask the police and fire departments what they do when the State or Fed says “jump.”